Ellen Broe

Ellen Johanne Broe (born February 11, 1900 in Horsens , Jutland (DK), † August 24, 1994 in Copenhagen (DK)) was a Danish nurse, nursing historian, director of the education department of the International Council of Nurses in the Florence Nightingale Foundation.

Life

Ellen Broe was born to Anna and Peter Johannes Broe. The father was a prison chaplain. Ellen Broe chose the nurse profession to pursue her passion for traveling. Ellen Broe completed her training at the renowned Bispebjerg Hospital in the Danish capital, Copenhagen. She finished her training at the age of 24 in 1924 and then traveled to Morocco, Paris, the Netherlands and New York. She worked in these places as a nurse in private care or in hospitals, for example the Presbyterian Hospital in New York. Here she acquired the additional qualification as a community nurse. An illness of her father brought Ellen Broe back to Denmark, where she worked on a tuberculosis ward in Copenhagen in 1931 . From 1934 she was involved in the training committee of the Danish Nursing Association (DNO) and from 1935 in its building committee. In 1933 she became matron at Sundby Hospital in Copenhagen and a fruitful collaboration with the chief physician and bacteriologist Hans Christian Gram developed . Broe wanted to expand her nursing skills in the USA. She received a scholarship to study nursing management at Columbia University in New York City in 1937. With the newly acquired knowledge, she returned to Denmark and became the educational officer at the Danish College for Nursing at Aarhus University, which was supported by the Rockefeller Foundation . Also in the 1940s Broe became a member of the Danish Florence Nightingale Committee, in 1947 she studied with the support of the Rockefeller Foundation at the University of Toronto, where she also met the German nurse Olga von Lersner . During this period, the Rockefeller Foundation funded study opportunities at the University of Toronto from nurses worldwide. In 1951 Ellen Broe became director of the Florence Nightingale International Foundation (FNIF) in London. From here she undertook further trips within Europe, including to Germany to the newly founded nurses' school at Heidelberg University . In 1962 Broe went to Zaire as a nursing advisor for the Danish Red Cross , where she trained nursing staff at a Danish hospital.

After the liberation of the Neuengamme concentration camp , in April and May 1945, Ellen Broe took on the care of surviving prisoners who were brought to Sweden until the German Wehrmacht surrendered.

Ellen Broe believed that researching the history of nursing was very important. She also advocated the belief that more nursing history should be taught in nursing education. With this opinion, however, she could not prevail. In 1941 she wrote the chapter on nursing history in the "Text and Handbook of Nursing 1926–1927," the first comprehensive nursing textbook in Denmark published by Charlotte Munck.

Ellen Broe died on August 24, 1994 in Copenhagen.

Awards

• 1982: “Honor Pro Humanitate” from the Danish Red Cross.
• 1985 Florence Nightingale Medal.

Publications

• Broe, Ellen J .: The Florence Nightingale International Foundation , in: The American Journal of Nursing (1953), 53, 11, pp. 1345-1347.

literature

• Malchau-Diez, Susanne and Christiane Reimann : Ellen Broe , in: Danish Women Encyclopaedia online.
• Gunilla Svensmark: Ellen Broe , in: Hubert Kolling (Ed.): Biographical Lexicon on Nursing History “ Who was who in nursing history ”, Volume 7, hpsmedia Nidda 2015, pp. 46–48.

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Correspondence of the nursing school of the University of Heidelberg , Acc 43/08, Heidelberg University Archives.
2. ↑ Christine R. Auer: Antje Grauhan and Wolfgang Rapp ( Paul Christian Department ): The expansion of the bipersonal situation into the triad “patient-doctor-nurse” presented us with new challenges, for Sabine Bartholomeyczik on the Federal Cross of Merit, Heidelberg 2015, p. 31+ 32, 73-76.